2. RULES AND VOTING FORM:
The rules of the Rec.Sport.Soccer Player Of the Year vote are a
modification of the rules used by France Football for their Player of
the Year award.
1. All valid votes have to submitted between the 1st of February at
00:00 CET (Central European Time) and the 28th of February at
midnight CET.
2. The vote, held each year, represents the calendar year which just
ended at the time of the vote.
3. Eligibility for the 2005 vote is determined by the vote committee.
A full list of eligible players as well as the criteria used to
select them can be found below.
For voting, use the form below and send it in one e-mail to James
Allnutt (poy2005@AccessEconomics.com.au). Complete the form by filling
in any 5 of the eligible players listed under item 4 below in order;
also add your name, e-mail address, country of birth, country of
residence and voting eligibility. Any additional comments can be added
below the vote but may be ignored. Incomplete forms are invalid. You
can assist in making compilation of the vote easier by cutting and
pasting the actual player names from the list below into the form - then
there is no doubt regarding who you are voting for.
---------------------------CUT HERE-------------------------
VOTE FOR R.S.S PLAYER OF THE YEAR 2005
Name:
E-mail address:
Country of residence:
Country of birth:
Voting eligibility:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Additional comments (optional):
NB: send this form to poy2005@AccessEconomics.com.au
between February 1, 0.00 CET and February 28, 24.00 CET.
---------------------------CUT HERE-------------------------
You should receive notification of a successful vote within
48 hours (barring mail server problems). You may vote only
once; any second vote will be ignored. Votes listing ineligible
players will be rejected; you will be notified of rejection
at the first time of submitting an invalid vote, but not at
any later attempts.

3. CHANGES W.R.T. PREVIOUS VOTES:
Due to the concerted attempts in the recent votes of promoting
relatively unknown players of a certain club or country, restrictions on
eligibility of players for the vote were introduced for the 2003 vote.
Only players from the list below will be eligible for voting. Note that
the list is pretty long (107 names) and the top-5 players of any serious
choice should definitely be among it, as we have made the criteria for
eligibility (see below) pretty wide. The list of criteria below is
similar to that used last time, but may be amended for later votes.
Serious suggestions on this are welcome but will have no effect for
the 2005 vote.
As for the 2004 vote, we have added an further check for the 2005 vote
to assist in determining the eligibility of voters. There are four
types of eligibility.
A: Members of RSSSF
B: Past voters for the RSS POY
C: Contributors to the USENET newsgroup Rec.Sport.Soccer or the RSSSF
website
D: All other persons
The organisers do not wish to limit the ability of interested persons to
contribute their honest opinion to the vote. However, as noted in
previous years, this vote is organised for the readers of the USENET
newsgroup Rec.Sport.Soccer and the visitors to the RSSSF website. It is
NOT aimed at the general public. The voter eligibility criteria
attempts to ensure this occurs.
Voters in the first three categories will be accepted fairly readily
once sensible checks have been made. Some advice on how to ensure your
vote is included is included below.
Category A: Including your name will be sufficient. For example, Karel
Stokkermans' vote would be included under this criteria.
Category B: Including another (preferably most recent) year that you
voted (and using the same name you used then in your entry) allows us to
check your eligibility and limit multiple votes. For example, Mike Winter
(first voter in 2004 POY vote) would be eligible under this criteria.
Category C: Including your email address (or equivalent) will allow us
to check whether you do contribute to the newsgroup or website. For
example, Ben Smith would be eligible under this criteria - and it should
allow people who haven't voted before to contribute.
Category D: All other persons. Anybody else may contribute. However,
the organisers reserve the right to exclude votes if, in our opinion,
there has been an attempt to bias the vote in a way that defeats the
spirit of the vote. It is our hope that this does not occur, and that
all otherwise eligible votes will be included. Last year this category
included a variety of persons from professional football journalists
to members of the public.
Eligibility Criteria
All players fulfilling at least one of the conditions listed below
are eligible for the 2005 vote:
1) Topscorer(s) (Golden Boot) and MVPs of each continental
championship played in 2005: Concacaf
2) Players that scored at least 1 point in France's Football Ballon
d'Or
3) Players that scored at least 1 point in FIFA's POY poll
4) Top 10 from World Soccer Player of the Year
5) Top 10 from El Pais, South America POY + players nominated on the
"2005 XI" not ranked among top 10
6) Onze-Mondial "XI of the Year"
7) Bravo Award Winner
8) IFFHS: Goalkeeper of the Year 2005, World's Top Goalscorer ("A"
games + continental/intercontinental club competitions), World's
Best Top Division Goalscorer
9) UEFA MVPs (general and by field position) of the 2004/05 season
club competitions)
10) Copa Libertadores 2005 - MVP
11) Nominees for Asian POY 2005 (total of 10)
12) Nominees for African POY 2005 (total of 5)
13) ESM Golden Boot Winner
14) Players from ESM-XI for the calendar year 2005 (Jan-Dec)
15) Women Players: top 5 from FIFA's POY poll
16) Confederations Cup: Top-3 MVPs + Golden Boot
17) FIFA U-20 World Cup: Top-3 MVPs + Golden Boot
18) FIFA U-17 World Cup: Top-3 MVPs + Golden Boot
19) FIFA Club World Championships: Top-3 MVPs
Note that a request was made of the Oceania Football Confederation for
a list of their 3 best players - but no response was received.